Born in 1960, KIM Ki-duk studied fine arts in Paris from 1990 to 1993 before turning into a filmmaker when he won a screenplay contest by the Korean Film Council in 1995 which led to his praised debut <Crocodile> in 1996. He quickly followed that up with <Wild Animals>, which was set in Paris, before getting his first major festival invitation with his 1998 work <Birdcage Inn>, which screened at the Berlin International Film Festival. Broad international acc... expand

Born in 1960, KIM Ki-duk studied fine arts in Paris from 1990 to 1993 before turning into a filmmaker when he won a screenplay contest by the Korean Film Council in 1995 which led to his praised debut <Crocodile> in 1996. He quickly followed that up with <Wild Animals>, which was set in Paris, before getting his first major festival invitation with his 1998 work <Birdcage Inn>, which screened at the Berlin International Film Festival. Broad international acclaim, as well as infamy, materialized in 2000 when his film <The Isle>, featuring some notorious scenes, debuted internationally at the Venice International Film Festival. That same year he released the experimental <Real Fiction>, a work shot in real time in one take. In 2001, his sixth film <Address Unknown> opened the Venice Film Festival, while the controversial forced prostitution film <Bad Guy> debuted at the Busan International Film Festival. He paired up with superstar JANG Dong-gun for the military drama <The Coast Guard> in 2002.

Even more success came in 2003 when he released his landmark work <Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter and Spring>. Critically praised and screened internationally, it was for many years the most successful Korean film to screen in the United States. In 2004, he won both the Silver Bear (from Berlin) and the Silver Lion (from Venice), for his works <Samaritan Girl> and <3-Iron>, another KIM film that has endured as a classic. Yet despite the international acclaim each of his films have received, following the solid returns of <Bad Guy>, his films have generally been poorly received in Korea. He has been a vocal critic of the exhibition system that allows little room for independent films in Korea and has both threatened to withdraw some of his films from release and spearheaded various initiatives to promote the distribution of local indie cinema. Slowing to one film per annum following his award-winning 2004, in the next four years he produced <The Bow> (2005), <Time> (2006), <Breath> (2007) and <Dream> (2008). In 2008, he also ventured into producing, handing his own scripts to some of his former assistant directors for <Beautiful> and the smash hit gangster/cinema mashup <Rough Cut>, by JANG Hoon. But when an on set accident almost ended in tragedy on <Dream>, the director was so shaken up that he went into retirement.

Casting out his demons with the self-filmed autobiographical work <Arirang>, KIM returned in 2011 and picked up the Un Certain Regard prize at the Cannes Film Festival. That same year he released <Amen>, which he filmed himself with only one actress during a few days in Europe. Despite a debut at the San Sebastian Film Festival, KIM pulled the film from theaters shortly after its debut and has not allowed it to be screened since. <Poongsan>, which he wrote and produced, came out the same year. KIM’s greatest victory came in 2012, when his austere film <Pieta> earned him the Golden Lion from Venice, making him the first Korean filmmaker to take the top award in either Cannes, Berlin or Venice. Though neither earned awards, his next two works also debuted at Venice, 2013’s controversial castration drama <Moebius> and 2014’s revenge thriller <One on One>, his 20th work as a director. In 2013, the prolific filmmaker also wrote and produced three films, <Rough Play>, <Godsend> and <Red Family>, while <Made in China> debuted in 2014.

In 2015, he made the small-scale indie drama <Stop> in Japan. The film, which concerned the Fukushima Disaster, bowed at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. Maintaining his pace, KIM prepared another film in 2016, this time teaming up with RYOO Seung-bum. close

The Florence Korean Film Fest 2019, which will take place from March 21st to the 29th, has revealed this year’s lineup. Opening the program will be KANG Hyoung-cheol’s Korean War-era tap dance musical war drama Swing Kids, while Jero YUN’s Beautiful Days, the opening film of last year’s Busan International Film Festival, will wind things down to a close eight days later. Among the major guests in ...

The Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia returns for its 51st edition this month, and with it comes once again a broad lineup of the latest genre cinema from Korea. 14 films have been invited this year, among them ten features and four shorts film. Three of those features and one of the shorts will be featured in the festival’s competition sections. Featuring in the Official F...

PARK Jung-min and RYOO Seung-bum are set to team up in the third installment of the hit crime series Tazza, which will be helmed by KWON Oh-kwang and produced by Sidus FNH. The Tazza series was launched with Tazza: The High Rollers by director CHOI Dong-hoon in 2006. Following that film’s massive popularity, KANG Hyeong-chul tackled the sequel Tazza-The Hidden Card in 2014. The previous films were...

The Korean Film Council (KOFIC - Chairman, OH Seok Geun) hosted its ‘Korean Film Night’ event during the 68th Berlin International Film Festival at the Korean Culture Center in Berlin at 8pm on Monday, February 19. The event was put on to celebrate the Korean films invited to this year’s Berlinale and to promote exchanges between Korean filmmakers and film professionals from around the world. The ...

KOFIC’s Korea-Singapore Co-production Seminar Held December 11th In an attempt to find new markets and partnerships, the Korean Film Council (Chairman: KIM Eui-suk, KOFIC) has turned its face towards Singapore. In order to increase the relationship between the two nations, KOFIC attended Screen Singapore which started on December 9th. There, KOFIC organized a special seminar to bring together the ...

BONG Joon-ho Produced Maritime Thriller The Korean Film Council (KOFIC) has selected SHIM Sung-bo’s debut maritime thriller Haemoo as its pick for the Best Foreign Language Film category at next year’s Academy Awards. Executive produced and co-written by Bong Joon Ho, Haemoo follows a fishing trawler that takes on illegal immigrants only to be pursued by the coast guard and encounter disaster out ...

Review of Korean Film Industry in 2012 The Korean film industry saw an impressive rise in terms of admissions and ticket sales in 2012. The total audience figure stood at 194.89 million, a year-on-year increase of 21.9%. Two Korean movies attracted more than ten million spectators. Let’s review the Korean film industry in 2012 and consider its prospects for 2013. Sharp Rise in Theater Admission...

A tremendous performance during the extended Chuseok lunar holiday helped the Korean period drama <Masquerade> to run far ahead of its rivals at the box office. From the two-week period from September 20 to October 3, which represents the film's second and third weeks on release, <Masquerade> pulled in a massive 5.4 million tickets to bring its overall totals to 7.2 million admissi...

In the first half of September, Korean cinema continued its recent run of strength at the box office, with local features accounting for six of the top eight grossing films. Heading the pack was <Traffickers>, a grisly thriller about organ trafficking that took 1.15 million admissions over the time period in question. Starring IM Chang-jung, CHOI Daniel, OH Dal-soo, MIN Hyo-rin and new actre...